Education

• Indiana University B.S. 1978
• Yale University J.D. 1982

Courses

• Criminal Law (B511)
• Torts (B531)
• Law and Education (B658)
• Race, American Society, and the Law (B756)
• Seminar in Law and Development (L750)
• Seminar in Antidiscrimination in Education (L704)
• Sports Law (B678)
• Seminar in Comparative Inequality (L770)
• Civil Rights Litigation
• Poverty, Inequality, and the Law
• Legal Rights of Minors

Background

• Director of the Hudson & Holland Scholars Program (2004-2008)
• Founder and Director of the Indiana University Summer in Ghana Program (2002-2008)
• Fulbright Lecturer in India from December (1996-1997)
• Member of the Indiana Uniform Law State Commissioners from (1989-1995)
• Member of the Yale Journal of World Public Order (1981-1982)

Biography

Professor Brown was on the faculty of Indiana University Maurer School of Law from January 1987 until he took emeritus status in June 2022. He then joined the University of South Carolina School of Law as the Mitchell Willoughby Distinguished Professor on July 1, 2022. Brown graduated from Yale Law School in 1982. He teaches Torts, Law and Education, Race & Law, and Transnational Inequality. Brown has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, University of San Diego School of Law, University of Alabama School of Law, and the University of Illinois School of Law.  He has been affiliated with universities on four different continents including the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, India; the Law Faculty of the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa; and the School of Transnational Law of Peking University in Shenzhen, China.

An original participant of the Critical Race Theory Workshop in Madison, Wisconsin in 1989 and the first People of Color Conference held in Chicago, Illinois in 1991, for 37 years his primary research interests are in the areas of race, law and education and transnational inequality. Brown has published over 90 articles or comments on issues such as critical race theory, school desegregation, affirmative action, African-American Immersion Schools, international boarding schools for African-Americans, increasing school choice, the impact of the African-Americans on anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and the inspiration the 250 million Dalits in India have drawn from African-Americans. Carolina Academic Press published his 2005 book entitled, Race, Law and Education in the Post Desegregation Era and his 2014 book entitled, Because of Our Success: The Changing Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of Blacks on Affirmative Action.  Brown’s current book project is tentatively entitled CASTE ANALOGY REMIX: The Benefits for the Black Community from Comparing Their Liberation Struggle to that of Dalits in India.

A frequent speaker at scholarly conferences, Brown has spoken of issues of race, education, diversity or the global impact of African-Americans over 300 times including at the annual Convention of the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus Braintrust Meetings, the American Bar Association, and the celebration of the Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court for the 50th Anniversary of Brown v Board of Edcuation; at several leading law schools and universities including Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Duke, Cornell, Emory, Northwestern, UCLA, and Texas; and including at Leeds University, Oxford University, University of Kasel, Al-Quds University outside Jerusalem, School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, School of Law and Humanities of China University of Mining and Technology-Beijing and the School of Transnational Law of Peking University, School of Law.

Professor Brown has a special relationship to the Dalit struggle in India. His first trip to India was a 5-month Fulbright Lectureship from Dec 1996 to May 1997. He has also led a group of 13, mostly African-American professors, on a 17-day trip through India in October of 2012. During this trip, their group participated in three academic conferences comparing the struggles of African-Americans with those of Dalits. He led a different group of 11 professors on a similar three-week journey to India in June and July of 2015 where they participated in five academic conferences structured on the same theme.  Together, he has participated in over a dozen conferences in India comparing the liberation struggles of Dalits and African-Americans at institutions including the Indian Institute for Dalit Studies, University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jindal Global Law School, National Law School in Bangalore, University of Mumbai and the Tata Institute. Brown has also spoken at celebrations of the work of Dr. Ambedkar in London, at Columbia University, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Varanasi, and Bangalore.

In the Media

• Appeared on "The Male Black and Latino Vote and Trump's Victory," WFHB News (11/11/2024)
• Quoted in "Yale Law's Diversity Decreases After Affirmative Action's Death Knell," Above the Law (10/8/2024)
• Quoted in "Law School sees drop in diversity post-affirmative action," Yale Daily News (10/4/2024)
• Discussant at "Charting the Aftermath of Equality: Brown, SFFA & the Continuing Struggle for Racial Justice," Harvard Law School Events (4/11/2024)
• Discussant at "Film: The Girl in the Yellow Scarf," IU Cinema Event (3/18/2024)
• Quoted in "Yes, white folks, the U.S. Supreme Court hurt you too," Indiana Capital Chronicle (7/3/2023)
• Quoted in "DEI symposium brings together students, community leaders," Chicago Tribune (5/18/2023)
• Appeared on "The Supreme Court is discussing the removal of race-based admissions in schools," Indiana Public Media (11/9/2022)
• Quoted in "Upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases could curb colleges' use of affirmative action," Missouri Independent (3/30/2022)
• Quoted in "Critical race theory: Panel discusses origins, applications," Indianapolis Recorder (2/21/2022)
• Mentioned in "CRT discussion brings multiple views, little consensus," The Indiana Lawyer (2/18/2022)
• Mentioned in "What is critical race theory? Experts try to explain at local NAACP event," WFYI (2/16/2022)
• Quoted in "IUPUI forum focuses on critical race theory," WTHR (2/16/2022)
• Quoted in "NAACP hosts critical race theory forum headlined by IU law professor," WISH (2/16/2022)
• Quoted in "Congressional Bill Seeks to End Legacy Preferences in College Admissions," The Harvard Crimson (2/9/2022)
• Quoted in "US High Court to Review Race Consideration in College Admission," VOA News (1/29/2022)
• Quoted in "'Damning' report shows plummeting Black homeownership in Indy. Here's why.," IndyStar (1/4/2022)
• Quoted in "Indiana bills seek to regulate teaching race in upcoming session," Chalkbeat: Indiana (1/3/2022)

Selected works

Books

• BECAUSE OF OUR SUCCESS: The Changing Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of Blacks on Affirmative Action (2014 Carolina Academic Press);
• RACE, LAW AND EDUCATION IN THE POST-DESEGREGATION ERA: Four Perspectives On Desegregation And Resegregation (2005 Carolina Academic Press).

Book Chapters

• Ambedkar in London from the Perspective of the African-American Community:  Or One Reason Why This Community Doesn’t Know Him Better in AMBEDKAR IN LONDON (eds. William Gould, Santosh Dass and Christophe Jaffrelot (forthcoming in 2022)
• “From the 1930s to the 2020s: What Ice Cube’s Song “Endangered Species” Meant for Four Generations of Black Males” (co-authored Robert Pervine, Charles Westerhaus and Kynton Gray) in FIGHT THE POWER:  LAW AND POLICY THROUGH HIP-HOP SONGS (eds. Gregory S. Parks and Frank Rudy Cooper 2022)
• “The History and Conceptual Elements of Critical Race Theory” (co-authored Darrell Jackson) in the HANDBOOK OF CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN EDUCATION 2nd edition (eds. Marvin Lynn and Adrienne Dixson 2022)
• “Common Struggles? Why There Has Not Been More Cooperation Between African-Americans And Dalits” (co-authored Lalit Khandare) in DR. B.R. AMBEDKAR: THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE (2020)
• “African-American Perspective on Common Struggles: The Benefits for African-Americans Comparing Their Struggle to the Dalit Liberation Efforts” in THE RADICAL IN AMBEDKAR: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS 43-60 (eds. Suraj Yende and Anand Teltumbde, 2018).
• “The Rise and Fall of One-Drop Rule” in COLOR MATTERS: SKIN TONE BIASES & THE MYTH OF A POST-RACIAL AMERICA (Kimberly Jade Norwood ed. 2013);
• “The History and Conceptual Elements of Critical Race Theory” in the Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education (eds. Marvin Lynn and Adrienne Dixson, 2013);
• "Do African-American Males Need Race and Gender Segregated Education?: An Educator's Perspective and a Legal Perspective" in THE NEW POLITICS OF RACE AND GENDER (1993).

Articles

• Critical Race Theory Explained by One of the Original Participants 98 New York University Law Review Online 91 (2023)
• Does U.S. Federal Employment Law Now Cover Caste Discrimination Based on Untouchability?: If All Else Fails There is the Possible Application of Bostock V. Clayton County (co-authored Lalit Khandare, Annapurna Waughray and Kenneth Dau-Schmidt) 46 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY REVIEW OF LAW & SOCIAL CHANGE 117 (2022)
• Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of the Nation’s Black Law Students: An Analysis of Data from the LSSE Survey (co-authored Ken Dau Schmidt) 22 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN LAW & POLICY 1 (2022)
• Out of Bounds: A Critical Race Theory Perspective On “Pay For Play” in 29 The Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport 30 (2019).
• The Enduring Integration School Desegregation Helped to Produce in 67 Case Western Law Review 1055 (2017).
• The Social Reconstruction of Race & Ethnicity of the Nation’s Law Students:  A Request to the ABA, AALS and LSAC For Changes In New Reporting Requirement (co-authored with Tom I. Romero, II) 2011 Michigan State Law Review 1133(2011).
• African American Disproportionality in School Discipline:  The Divide Between Best Evidence and Legal Remedy (co-authored with Russell J. Skiba & Suzanne Eckes) part of symposium issue entitled “The School-to-Prison Pipeline” 54 New York Law Review 1071 (2009/10).
• Can Public International Boarding Schools in Ghana be the Next Educational Reform Movement for Urban Minority Public School Students? part of symposium issue entitled "Educational Equity in Communities of Color" 19 Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review 91 (2009).
• Lessons Learned from Comparing the Application of Constitutional and Federal Discrimination Laws to Higher Education Opportunities of African-Americans in the U.S. with Dalits in India as part of a symposium entitled “Race Across Boundaries” 24 Harvard Blackletter Law Journal 3 (2008)(co-authored with Vinay Sitipati).
• The Supreme Court’s Role in the Growing School Choice Movement 67 OHIO STATE LAW JOURNAL 37 (2006) part of the symposium issue entitled “Meeting the Challenge of Grutter-Affirmative Action in Twenty-Five Years.”
• The Hypothetical Opinion in Grutter v Bollinger From the Perspective of the Road Not Taken in Brown v Board of Education 36 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO LAW JOURNAL 83 (2004) part of the symposium issue entitled "Race In Educational Policy."
• Do African-Americans Need Immersion Schools?: The Paradoxes Created by the Conceptualization by Law of Race and Public Education 78 Iowa Law Review 813 (1993); An edited version of this article appears in CRITICAL RACE THEORY: THE CUTTING EDGE (ed. Richard Delgado) and RACE, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND AMERICAN LAW: A MULTIRACIAL APPROACH (eds. Timothy Davis, Kevin R. Johnson, & George A. Martinez, 2001).
• Has the Supreme Court Allowed the Cure for De Jure Segregation to Replicate the Disease 78 Cornell Law Review 1 (1992); An edited version of this article is to appear in READINGS IN RACE AND LAW: A GUIDE TO CRITICAL RACE THEORY (ed. Alex M. Johnson).

Essays

• NEPC review of: How to Regulate Critical Race Theory in Schools: A Primer and Model Legislation. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center (2022).
• Brown at 65: How does the Changing Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of Blacks Impact the Interpretation of School Desegregation 11 Alabama Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review 1 (2019)
• Evolution of the Racial Identity of Children of Loving: Has Our Thinking About Race and Racial Issues Become Obsolete 86 Fordham Law Review 2773 (2018)
• LSAC Data Reveals That Black/White Multiracials Outscore All Blacks on LSAT by Wide Margins in 39 N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change 381 (2015)
• Introduction to Symposium: Race Across Boundaries 24 Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal 1 (2008).
• The Road Not Taken in Brown: Recognizing the Dual Harm of Segregation 90 Virginia Law Review 1579 (2004).
• Revisiting the Supreme Court's Opinion in Brown v Board of Education from a Multiculturalist Perspective 96 Teachers College Record (Teachers College, Columbia University) 644 (1995).
• A Multiculturalist's Advice to Integrationist About Rethinking Racially and Ethnically Separate Schools 81 American Bar Association Journal 108 (March 1995).
• The Social Construction of Rape Victims: Stories About the Story of the Rape of Desiree Washington by Mike Tyson 1992 University of Illinois Law Review 997 (1993). An edited version of this essay appears in BLACK MEN ON RACE, GENDER AND SEXUALITY: A CRITICAL READER (ed. Devon Carbado 1999).

Related links

• Publications

Areas of expertise

• Race discrimination
• Sports law